Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c17.s2.73

c17.s2.73

We learn from the Nānāghāṭ Inscriptions that Sātakarṇi, son(?) of Simuka, entered into a matrimonial alliance with the powerful Aṁgiya or Ambhiya² family, the scions of which were called Mahāraṭhi, and became sovereign of the whole of Dakshiṇāpatha. He seems also to have controlled Eastern Mālwa and undoubtedly performed the *Aśvamedha* sacrifice. The conquest of Eastern Mālwa by his family is possibly implied by coins and the Sāñchī Inscription when read along with the Purāṇic statement that in succession to the *Śuṅgabhṛitya* Kāṇvāyana kings, the ‘earth’ will pass to the ‘Andhras’. The inscription records the gift of a certain Ānaṁda, the son of Vasiṭhî, the foreman of the artisans of *Rājan* Siri-Sātakaṇi.² Sātakarṇi seems to have been the first prince to raise the Sātavāhanas to the position of paramount sovereigns of Trans-Vindhyan India. Thus arose the first great empire in the Godāvarî valley which rivalled in extent and power the Śuṅga empire in the Ganges valley and the Greek empire in the Land of the Five Rivers. According to the evidence of Indian as well as classical writers,³ the principal capital of the Sātavāhana Empire was at Pratishṭhāna, “the modern Paiṭhan on the north bank of the Godāvarî in the Aurangabad District of Hyderabad.”